


What They Didn't Say On LiveJournal

by Ayulsa (execharmonious)



Category: Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis
Genre: BDSM, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-29
Updated: 2010-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:09:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/execharmonious/pseuds/Ayulsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...Look, do you want to just beat up on me until you feel better or something?" For the RP at watchoverall.livejournal.com.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What They Didn't Say On LiveJournal

**Author's Note:**

> Requires a little context, which can be found here: http://thewishfire.livejournal.com/2581.html

Roxis was rearranging his room.

"Stupid... idiot... he wouldn't understand...."

In a violent and heated manner.

"Why does he.... Why does he always have to...!"

He wasn't the type to throw books when angry. And, indeed, everything he picked up _was_ being relocated in its appropriate position on the shelves, his spare glasses case set down on his nightstand, the sword he'd synthesised for a recent assignment stacked on the rack by the door. By all accounts, it was a productive tidying effort.

It was just that every book he replaced threw up a formidable cloud of dust, and the _screeeech_ with which his normally prized possessions slid across his desk could have rivalled Ernentraud Karnap's infamous "pointer-down-the-chalkboard" method of getting her students' attention.

After a time, though, he stopped ranting to himself out loud, replacing it with chants in his head, which in time also faded to silence. The physical exertion, it seemed, was in itself a good purgative for his mood. The satisfying _thunk_ with which the textbooks hit the back of the bookcase reminded him of his own strength; and small though it was compared to that of the rival who'd fueled his rage, he still took a certain pleasure in exercising it, in feeling the world around yield to his will.

Books were good for that. Books stayed where you put them. They didn't protest, didn't have desires of their own.

Much like Vayne Aurelius.

_Augh._

Roxis _flumph_ed down onto the bed, thoughts orbiting his mind that he would not let himself fully grasp, dared not to peer too far into the nature of. And so, unanalysed, they continued to spin, taunting him with the shadows of their ideas, the feather-light tickles of their possibilities.

A deafening crack shook him out of his self-consumption. It sounded like someone had smacked a thunderstone against the floor, and the reverberations had echoed all down the hall. Climbing, suddenly weary, to his feet, he made to peer out into the hall to see what was going on.

Behind the door-- much to his shock-- was that self-same Vayne Aurelius.

Evidently, he'd banged on the door loud enough to cause that racket, and looking at him, Roxis could easily imagine that he'd been inspired to hammer so violently. Vayne was out of breath, his face flushed, his hair in scruffy disarray, the mottled red under his eyes and around his cheeks betraying tears recently wept. Every now and then, there were little hitches in the muscles of his throat, like he was choking back another flood.

"Roxis...." Every word was punctuated by a gasp. "I can't take this...."

"You have some nerve, babbling at me about what _you_ can and can't take when you're the one bringing it to my doorstep," he said, taking a step back to let Vayne through the entryway. When Vayne hesitated, he urged him on with a warning glare. _Gods know my reputation is already far enough in the gutter without us causing a scene outside my own dorm room._ At least, that was how he justified his action; and in fairness, it was only partly a lie.

Part of him, though, just wanted....

_Wanted what?_ There was the question he couldn't answer. Not even to himself.

So he turned it on Vayne.

"What do you want?" He slammed the door behind them with a rattle almost as vicious as Vayne's pounding had been. Privately, he berated himself for lashing out at school property-- these things had to last for generations, after all. But he needed to put his energy somewhere.

"I just... I wanted to put an end to this." Vayne swiped his cuff across his eyes; it came back damp. "And I knew you wouldn't come to me, so... I just... I didn't know what to do, but bring it to you...."

"Put an end to what?" said Roxis. "What are you asking me to do? Do you want me to martyr you? To end your _painful_"-- he rolled his eyes on that word-- "existence and condemn myself to ill repute for the remainder of whatever career I may be able to scrape together?"

Vayne looked genuinely appalled. "What? No! Where did you get that idea?"

Roxis shrugged. "That's what it sounded like, when you responded to my journal comment. 'Beat up on me until you feel better'. It's like you're trying to taunt me into killing you."

"That's not what I meant.... It's not like I'm asking you to.... I just thought, you seem to really just _want_ to, want to beat me, want to have some kind of triumph over me, and I... I don't know why it means _this much_ to you, but if it helps.... if it helps, it's okay, just... please.... No more of this...."

Vayne's speech allowed Roxis, for the first time, to truly appraise his dishevelled appearance, and for some reason it caused his own features to relax into a mask of something like calm. That Vayne was even more distressed than he was over this... something about that allowed him to put himself, if not entirely at ease, then at least in control of the situation.

It drew his attention to something else, as well.

"...What's that in your hand?"

"Oh...." Vayne drew his other hand out from behind his back. "I just wanted... I wanted you to know I really wouldn't fight back. So I brought this... you know, in case you didn't have one, or something. Like, maybe you used them all in synthesis...."

Roxis stared at the object Vayne had produced, and felt the corner of his mouth quirk in a motion that, had he given it full expression, would have been pure jaw-dropping shock.

_Sweet mother of calcination.... He_ cannot _want me to use this on him._

"...It's a rope," he said, stating the obvious to buy time.

Vayne nodded, with one of those little _un_ sounds of affirmation. His fingers twisted it slightly between them in a little nervous gesture. _And do you have to be like that about it?!_

"And you want me to... what, exactly. ...Tie you up?" Roxis drew out the words very carefully, watching Vayne's expression. He could _not_ afford to be wrong about this. He was already the laughing-stock of the entire academy; he didn't want his name echoing down the halls for the next twenty years.

"Well, yeah... I mean, I thought, you know, if you tied my hands behind my back.... That way, I can't even call on Sulpher, right?"

He scrutinised Vayne for any hint that the little demon spawn had _any_ idea just what he was implying, but his tone and his features were pure innocence. He really did just want to assure Roxis he wouldn't hurt him.

_Probably thinks he_ needs_ to be tied down for him not to just launch into one of his wonder-child fancy special moves.... Arrogant little...._

Well, whatever. Not that it would make that much difference; if Sulpher decided to leap from the little choker around Vayne's throat into full embodiment on his hand, a flimsy bit of rope wouldn't stop him. But he understood the gesture, at least, as embodying intent. He knew Vayne wouldn't do a thing.

"Fine."

He could have sworn he saw Vayne's face _light up_ at that. Of course, it was all just because they'd actually, for once in the relatively short time they'd known each other, managed to reach some form of agreement. But those eyes... the sheer, uninhibited sparkle in those eyes, like he really, seriously did want _nothing more_ than to be the resident chewtoy for whoever came along first.

Great. This was going to be like kicking a puppy.

He took the proferred rope from Vayne's hands, and ran his own fingers along its length-- _well-woven, with just the right amount of tension, the right amount of give.... Gods, does he do_ everything_ to perfection?_ "...If you're going to do this...." He waved vaguely, irritatedly, in Vayne's direction, like he was shooing a fly.

"Huh?"

Roxis gritted his teeth. _Don't make me say it...!_ "...You have to put your hands behind your back!"

"...Oh." Vayne let out a nervous laugh. "Sorry." Obligingly, he tucked his hands behind him, pressing them together at the wrists. "Like that?"

He crept around to inspect. "Yes, that's fine." He could feel his heart pounding in his throat; he tried to _very_ inconspicuously run his tongue over his dry lips, so Vayne wouldn't get the wrong idea. _Or the right one._

By the time his hands touched Vayne's, his own were trembling violently, no matter how hard he tried to steel his nerves. With a length of the rope pulled taut by one hand, Vayne's small, pale hands cupped almost reverently in the other, he began to wrap the cord around the other boy's wrists.

Small, and pale.... So delicate, like they'd been carved out of marble, like whatever made angels' wings different from birds' wings had got under his skin, making him soft and impermeable at the same time. He could never break Vayne; and that was the source of his loathing, that it was impossible to tear him down.

He finished up his binding, and, letting his thoughts drift, began to toy with the rope, his fingers easily sliding over its silken, firm consistency. They would have hardly noticed when they began moving against skin instead, except that Vayne let out a tiny gasp as Roxis stroked his hand, and suddenly he _was_ aware, that meltingly smooth and beautiful texture alive beneath his touch.

Miraculously, Roxis did not pull away.

"H-hey, Roxis...."

He turned, slowly, to look at Vayne; and Vayne looked back at him. His blue eyes were trapped somewhere between confused awe and that brilliant aliveness, that sparkle that, he had realised, was present in everything Vayne did; a constant outpouring, a testament to his desire to please. Even when he was sad, even when he was down, even when his heart was hammering in his chest with the fear of Roxis' hate and Roxis' pain and Roxis maybe throwing him across the room in a fit of blind wrath-- and he _was_ afraid, Roxis could see in the butterfly-pulse fluttering at his throat, but not of that, probably, just of _what Roxis might feel about it_\-- even through everything that made this situation so _incredibly_ messed up, his overwhelming desire was to give, and it lit up his eyes with joy.

And something, somewhere, in the back of Roxis' mind, went: _oh._

_Oh_ like realisation, and _oh_ like awe, and _oh_ like _oh gods, I need...._; and _oh_ like _I could never break Vayne, and there are two meanings to that sentence._

Vayne was... gods, he didn't know _what_ Vayne was any more, but wasn't it everything they strived for? Yes, that made him perfect, yes, that made him better than Roxis, but what was he to _do_\-- hold that back? Keep that perfection from expressing itself in the world? How could he, who burned so much to be better than Vayne-- how could he be better, how could he be _anything_, if all his efforts were turned towards crushing that one pure spirit among everyone who had _made it there?_

Theofratus Aurelius had, in all ignorance, brought forth nothing less than the perfect alchemical wonder. And he could not bring himself to grind that to dust.

"...What are you thinking?"

Vayne's voice brought him back to himself, brought his eyes into focus on Vayne's once again. He watched them narrow slightly in confusion, two liquid jewels, alive with the fire of what, if ever he had known it, was surely the Azoth of legends.

Tentatively, he moved his hand against Vayne's to check it was still there. In all of his pondering, he'd lost track of himself in space and time. The feel of Vayne against him sent a shiver all through him that he was sure could be seen; and all he could see in his mind's eye was that blazing image from the night before, the boy in front of him outlined in a silver-white halo of the purest light, every strand of his hair, every particle of his being, aflame with the most piercingly lovely colours....

"...I'm thinking...." He coughed a little; his throat was dry. "I'm thinking I... can't do it, Vayne."

"Can't do it...?"

His thumb rubbed absently over Vayne's fingers. "I can't... this. I can't hurt you."

Vayne laughed a little. "Roxis, you've... I hate to say it, but you've practically made a three-year career at Al-Revis out of trying to hurt me. What's different now?" His pupils darted, exploring Roxis' face for a clue. "What did I do?"

"It wasn't anything you did. It...." _Was something I didn't understand, and I'll be damned if I'll say that to his face, but...._ "What I... what I said last night, I.... gods, Vayne, I can't take it either...."

Fire surged in his veins; the distance was agony, all in a heartbeat, and before his mind had registered his movements his arms were wrapped around Vayne like his life depended on it.

"Roxis...." Vayne tried to pull his arms out from the embrace to return the favour-- and soon found a very obvious obstacle to this course of action. "--ah. Um, I... I don't quite know why... all of this... but if I could hold you, I would...."

"You're beautiful, Vayne.... I hate that you're beautiful, sometimes, because I can't be, because I can't be like you and it hurts so badly, but... I want... you're just incredible... and I want to drown in it...." He clung to Vayne's body, his palms burning against his clothing like he was trying to press all of this into him, like he could transmit the understanding of his will by sheer physical force; and he could feel Vayne burning him too, energy and light pouring out of him like he was breaking apart, spilling into Roxis and setting his every nerve ablaze. "You feel like a god...."

"Maybe I am...." He felt Vayne lean heavy against his shoulder, like all the strength had left him though the fire remained. "I'm just someone who... can't help doing what I do... I don't know how to not be this way... so... please accept it, I...."

A rage of frustration, need, and the desire to simply eclipse this boy in all he could give overwhelmed his rational mind. "Nnh, shut up, Vayne," he said, and silenced him with a kiss.

It felt like starlight, and it was all Roxis could do not to weep. The only thing that kept him steady was the wholly _delightful_ way Vayne had of whimpering into his mouth, tiny unformed benedictions that steered Roxis' mind firmly back towards the physical plane.

He could feel Vayne's heat beneath his jacket, his heart's acceleration, and it made him want to be closer to that source of life. Not that he hadn't wanted that from the beginning: _closer_, and he wondered how much closer he could risk getting without completely burning up. Unfastening the clasp on Vayne's blazer, he shucked it as far down his arms as it would go-- _I'm_ not_ untying his hands, damn it, not for gold itself!_\-- and pulled his shirt off over his head, leaving both pieces of clothing draped unceremoniously over his wrists. _Ungainly, but it works,_ he thought, regarding his handiwork as he stripped off his own jacket and shirt.

When he was done, Vayne was just standing there, his eyes half-closed, chest rising and falling with audible breaths. There was no protest, no look of confusion, no attempt to get any understanding out of Roxis whatsoever. _Damn, he really did mean anything,_ Roxis thought, and let his mind run wild with that new information as he closed the distance once more. His touch againt Vayne's bare chest, fingers tracing idle patterns on the skin, sent up sparks, and he hardly knew any more whether they were only in his mage-sight or whether the visible light spectrum had embraced them, too. All he knew was that Vayne sighed when he did it, and his hand burned with electric feelings, and he never wanted to stop.

But all cycles must have their endpoints. Vayne's sighs, once peaceful, were becoming shakier and more strained, and Roxis felt wetness at his shoulder; he pulled away, just enough, to see the boy now crying where he had not allowed himself, and a part of him flickered with pride, and a part of him, gallingly, just wanted to soothe away those tears. A little awkwardly, despite much bolder actions in only the last few minutes, he tousled Vayne's hair with his fingers. "I-- I hope I haven't hurt you," he managed to choke out.

"N-no... it's not...." Vayne shivered as if cold, and Roxis retrieved his jacket from the floor, wrapping it around his shoulders; it would take too long to pull Vayne's own clothing back up. "I just-- this is the first time you've ever been so nice to me.... I wish... it were always like this...."

Roxis pressed his face against Vayne's cheek, revelling in the softness and the burning. Each tear that struck his face felt like diamonds-- not how diamonds felt, how diamonds looked, a scintillating brilliance that tore through to the core of his soul. "You know what _I_ wish, Vayne?"

Vayne sniffled. "No. What?"

"I wish...." He stroked a hand over Vayne's head, forcing back his own tears. "That light... the way you burn, like the sun itself were but a candle in contrast to what real light is... that wonder, I wish I could break you open, get inside you and have it. I wish it could just... take me... ah!" He cringed back, throwing a hand over his eyes, but it didn't protect him from the light in his mind; the encompassing beauty that burnt out his sight and left him with only afterimages, sixth-sensory traces of Vayne, smiling, crying, through the haze of his altered perceptions.

"Like this...?" said Vayne, his words tentative, his touch just as tentative down Roxis' bare arms as it sent pure harmonies trilling through his nerves. _His hands are tied...!_ \--and in Roxis' second sight, bright tendril-wings glimmered all around them, and he swallowed, hard. "I don't really know what I'm doing... I don't even know how... I just...."

But Roxis moved to silence Vayne again, needing instinct this time to capture his lips in a perfect kiss; and this time it felt like the world was falling down, their bodies their only stability, as the ground and sky all went away. Vayne was a wildfire, a raging torrent, through and around and within Roxis; piercing him like arrows, flinging himself against the shores of his mind, a tidal-wave rhythm that Roxis moved to in unconscious thrusts and shudders-- the irony of it, how much he had thirsted to tear into Vayne, and how much Vayne was doing exactly that to him, now, and how he didn't mind it at all. Every bit of it brought him closer, and closer was all that he craved.

He was impaled on magic, and he was dying, and how terribly sweet it felt to die.

  
***

  
Roxis awoke from death some time later, to the firm, steady rhythm of a heartbeat. He forced his eyes open, a task that felt Herculean, and saw... not much of anything; but it smelled like his bed, and like Vayne, which was to say a little like unperfumed soap and a little like _cat_, and it felt like his blankets, and it felt like another body's warmth twitching slightly against him.

He groped around for his glasses; found Vayne, whose back, exposed to the air, felt _blissfully_ cool against his burning, slept-on hands; found the nightstand, and eventually found his spare pair, with which he examined the situation.

Perhaps cued by his own awakening-- he felt the silver cords of bonding still shimmering between them, stretched out pale and thin like the film of a soap bubble ready to burst-- Vayne stirred, and gave a most feline yawn, and settled his eyes peacefully, a little shyly, on Roxis.

"Is everything okay?" he asked, in the soft, husky voice of the recently awoken.

For some time, Roxis just stared at him; not knowing how to put into words the _layers_, the rise and fall of each instrument in that orchestral world from which he had been pulled, the clarity with which he knew-- how exactly he should go about his next assignment's synthesis, and how that was tied to other principles he'd only half-understood before, and how this branched out into so many revelations and how they all came back to one thing, love, that love was the beginning and the end and how his heart couldn't stop aching for Vayne, how it might never stop aching.

And then he noticed that Vayne's hands were still tied. And he knew his answer.

"I think everything's more than okay."


End file.
